Escape to the Final Resting Place
by hotdogfish
Summary: Phillipa had given her step-father more than enough time to tone down the over-controlling. But now that she'd finished high school, she had no intention of hanging around. It might have been a bit more responsible to tell her parents her plans, but that rather goes against the idea of doing something in secret.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Hi guys, just a couple things to note. First, I'd like to thank my friend, Mishi, for proof reading this, even though she isn't on this site. Second, there is a ghost pokemon in this fic; as far as I'm concerned, ghosts are spirits, and therefore have no DNA, nor reproductive system (regardless of what the games tell you about having them lay eggs), as such, they will be referred to as "it", instead of "he" or "she". Lastly, you should all go check out Harry Potter and the Pokemon Solution, which is co-authored by myself and yamiduke13. That's it and I hope you enjoy!

Friday

"Sandy, I'm officially handing in my two weeks notice." Philipa proclaimed as she walked into her boss's office.

Just like that, the last five months of planning crashed down on her. Before, it had all been theoretical, now, there was no going back. In two weeks, she would be leaving.

"Gotten a step forward in your plan?" Sandy asked

"Yeah, I got grandpa's golduck on my side. He's gonna help me catch some pokemon of my own, then I'm going to take him to grandpa's old place. I'll probably release him, or something."

"I can give you some pokeballs and potions if you want." Sandy offered, as the only pokemart in Lavender Town, they had plenty of supplies in the back, and Phillipa had been a good employee for over three years now.

"You don't have to do that, I've got money saved up, you know."

Sandy did know. Phillipa had never wanted to be a trainer, so all her wages had been put straight in the bank, instead of being spent on supplies.

"I know, but you also have three years worth of employee discounts that you haven't tapped in to." Sandy countered

Phillipa snorted, "Fine, but I'm not going to need that many pokeballs; I only need two or three pokemon. It's not like I want to be a full time trainer or anything, I just need to get away."

"You are aware that if the cops ask, I will be telling them your plans?" Sandy asked after a bit of an awkward silence

"Yeah, but as long as you don't tell either of my parents, then that's fine." Phillipa replied, Phillipa had carefully not told many people her exact plans for that reason.

Phillipa was sixteen, an adult, and old enough to live on her own. Legally, Phillipa was fully in her rights to move out without giving her parents a word of warning. Socially, she was running away.

Sandy didn't object, she knew why Phillipa was leaving. She also knew that it wasn't a spur of the moment thing; Phillipa had been planning this for a while, she'd mostly just been waiting to graduate from high school.

Phillipa pulled a sheet of paper off out from underneath the till. On it was her stock-up list, always the first job of her shift. She walked in to the back room while reading it, then put it on the shelf closest to the door, wedged under a box of pokeballs to stop it blowing away. Potions first. She needed...a box of potions, a dozen super potions, and four hyper potions. She could probably get it all on one trip.

She pulled out the potions and took them back to her list. On the shelves, hanging by a length of string, was a utility knife. Phillipa pushed out the blade and started sawing through the flaps that served as the top of the potions box. After throwing the cardboard scraps by the back door, she took the box back to the potions and grabbed some super potions. Carefully, she balanced them upside down, in the gaps between the potions, before laying the hyper potions on top of the super potions. Carefully, she picked the box up and carried it back to the front.

There were now a couple customers talking to Sandy, so Phillipa slid the potions on the end of the counter; it was very unprofessional to try to put stock on the floor, then spill it everywhere. She grabbed the hyper potions and went to put them on their shelf.

"Can I grab a couple of these super potions?"

Phillipa spun around to see a tall man in fairly dusty clothes addressing her, waving a hand at the potions on the counter.

"Of course. Will those be enough, or should I grab you some more?" She offered

"Nah, I only need a couple." The man replied, before pulling three super potions off the flat and putting them with some paralyse heals next to the till.

Phillipa waited for the group of scruffy men to finish buying their supplies and leave, before she took the rest of the potions and put them away. She quickly grabbed another three super potions from the back to fill up the shelf before continuing down her stock-up list.

"Do you have a sleeping bag and stuff?" Sandy asked, when she came back with a box full of pokeballs.

"No, but I was going to check out the second hand store on my next day off." Phillipa replied "Hey, could I store the stuff in the back? It'll only be for about a week."

"Put it under the desk in the office." Sandy said

"Thanks."

"When are you going to catch your pokemon?"

"After work. Going out this evening, actually."

"Do you know what you're looking for?"

"More or less, yeah."

"Don't get something that you can't keep as a pet later."

"I know. I should be able to get all of them in Route 8, which is super convenient." And the Pokemon Tower, but she wasn't going to advertise that bit.

For all that the inhabitants of Lavender Town accepted that people caught the ghosts in the tower, it was considered impertinent to actually advertise the fact. Such as that one time Phillipa was exploring the tower with her grampa's golduck, and he found a soothe bell. She kept it, she told people about it, but always glazed over its origins.

A couple hours later, Sandy found Phillipa in the office, eating a sandwich. In front of her was a small notebook, open at a map that Phillipa was carefully copying off the computer.

"How much longer on your break?" Sandy asked

"Um..." Phillipa checked the clock on the computer, "Eight minutes."

"Right. I'm heading off as soon as you get back."

"Sure thing." That was when Sandy usually left, anyway.

"Well, here's some pokeballs for you." Sandy said, handing Phillipa four pokeballs

"Awesome, thanks!" Phillipa exclaimed, before tucking them in to an empty pocket.

"You're welcome." Sandy replied, before slipping back out the office and went to punch the pokeballs in the till. She gave them a 100% discount, but they still had to be rung in so that stock didn't just disappear.

Phillipa's map was almost finished when she got off her break. She just had a few more towns to label, but they could wait until later. The front was empty of people when she got back, except for Sandy, but she didn't count because she left for home as soon as Phillipa appeared.

Once Sandy was gone, Phillipa went back in the office to finish her map. There was no customers there, and there likely wouldn't be many until closer to closing time. Then there would be a bit of a rush; trainers coming in off of the routes, trying to buy some supplies before the mart closed. She spent most of the afternoon between the few customers that came in, and talking on the phone to the second hand store. She managed to get a sleeping bag, rucksack, and travel pillow put on hold for her, so it was a productive afternoon.

The closing rush was busy as normal, but the purchases were varied enough that Phillipa didn't have to do emergency stock up in between ringing through customer's purchases. Running out of stock during the evening rush always made her shift a bad one, no matter how she the rest of it went.

At eight o'clock, she slipped out from behind the till and turned the sign on the window to 'closed' and locked the door. It was a push bar door, so the customers could leave, but no new ones could get in.

"Excuse me!" Phillipa shouted over the chattering of the customers, "We are now officially closed. Feel free to complete your purchases, but please don't take too long, I want to get out of here." She finished with a smile to take the harshness out of her words.

"Oh yeah, there's a game tonight." One of the men remembered

"Yeah, go Pidgeots." Phillipa said, sounding incredibly unenthusiastic

"The Pidgeots aren't even playing." The man said

"My boss is a major Pidgeots fan and has threatened to fire me if I support anyone else."

The customers laughed, but most of them grabbed a couple more items off the shelves, then lined up to pay. Gratefully, Phillipa rang their purchases through, and ten minutes later, the mart was empty and she could start the closing jobs.

She had already made her stock up list while waiting for the last few customers to leave, so she opened the till and started counting the money. The excess was sealed in a fancy plastic envelope and put in Sandy's desk in the office, and the total was entered in to the computer. She was only two cents out, which was better than she usually got. Next, she plugged her ipod into the computer and cranked up the volume. Usually, the PA system played the local radio station, but now that there was no customers, or Sandy, to complain, the beginning of The Lion King soundtrack started blaring out of the speakers.

Singing along, admittedly fairly badly, Phillipa started the final stock up. This one was always faster any during the day because, even though there was more to grab, there weren't any customers to get in the way. Fifteen minutes later, stock up was finished. Next, she grabbed a clean cloth from the bucket at the back, and a spray bottle with cleaner in it. Three minutes later, the counter and till had been wiped down, and the cloth put in the dirty-hamper. Seven minutes after that, the floors were swept. Ten more minutes and she had mopped the floors and poured out the dirty water into the drain outside the back door.

Fifteen minutes earlier than what her schedule said she should be leaving at, Phillipa grabbed her ipod, turned off the computer, and left the pokemart. She took a deep breath of the cool, night air, and turned towards the Pokemon Tower.

She would pass her house on the way, but she'd planned for that. When her grandpa was alive, he always went on hikes with his golduck around the Lake of Rage. When grandpa died, her mother had inherited the golduck. But Anseri missed grandpa and had never really liked her mother much to begin with, so Phillipa had offered to take him on walks around town. She had wanted to take him on the routes as well, but she wasn't allowed in them anymore. But she was allowed to take him in to the Pokemon Tower, though she had no idea why. Probably because her step-father had never been inside and didn't know what the ghosts could be like.

For the past month, Phillipa had been taking Anseri for walks in the Tower almost daily, so today would seem no different. Today was different, though. Today, Phillipa had empty pokeballs with her and was going to catch herself a gastly. It was the step one in her grand plan of getting herself out of Lavender Town in a way that was responsible, but completely secret until it was too late for anyone could stop her. Probably two goals that were completely contradictory, but Phillipa didn't let that bother her.

Phillipa waved cheerfully to her mother, who was working in the garden, as she passed her house. Her mother waved back, even if she had no idea why Phillipa was so happy today. Phillipa kept walking, and eventually got to the bank, half way between the mart and the tower.

The bank itself was closed, but there was a cash machine she could still use. She drew out another $15,000. Her step-father was monitoring her bank activity so, slowly, Phillipa had withdrawn pretty much all of her money. She'd had to invent things to buy, a newer ipod, clothes, computer games, even hair accessories. She was pretty sure her step-father had never actually checked if she had bought any of the things she claimed buying, but he always asked why the money had been withdrawn.

She had actually opened a new bank account on her sixteenth birthday, one that her parents had no idea existed. She got the monthly statements via an email address she had set up, again that her parents didn't know about, and only checked them at school or work. She even had to keep the bank card in the waistband of her panties while she slept; there had been a couple times when she'd opened her wallet and the various cards were in a different order than they were in the last time she'd looked. She always kept her wallet on her, so the only time someone could get in without her knowing, was when she was asleep. Strangely enough, none of the cash had been taken, she was just being … monitored. It was creepy.

She had over $200,000 in the other account and just under $1500 left in the one her parents knew about. Her last pay cheque would be coming in before she left, but she couldn't withdraw it until it had sat there for a couple days. It would have to stay there; maybe it would even still be there when she figured out a way to cut her parents off from that account too.

The $15,000 was deposited straight into the secret account, then Phillipa continued down the road to the Pokemon Tower. The sun had set by the time she arrived, but that just meant there would be more ghosts about, though hopefully she would be able to avoid any haunter.

She nodded to the receptionist at the entrance, then pulled Anseri's pokeball out of her pocket. As soon as she was through the door to the tower, she let him out.

Anseri still wasn't a fan of the Tower, but he preferred it to having to stay in the house the entire time. He grumbled as he followed Phillipa up the stairs, grumbled as they emerged on the next floor, and as they went up the stairs to the one above. Phillipa had no illusions about how much Anseri liked her, or more accurately, how much he didn't like her. He had never liked kids and Phillipa had been pretty bratty when she was younger, but he had tolerated her because grampa had told him he had to. But now grampa was dead and couldn't tell him to stop being a grouch. Anseri wasn't doing too well either. He wasn't eating much and was starting to get pretty thin, but he still could walk for hours longer than Phillipa could ever hope to. The only reason Anseri tolerated Phillipa was because she had promised to take him home, back to the lake.

Phillipa looked around at the tombstones and urns scattered around the floor; there was no pokemon and still quite a few people wandering around. She headed for the next flight of stairs.

Phillipa gasped quietly when she looked up the stairs and saw, sitting happily at the top, a cubone! They were very rare and very valuable if she were to catch it to sell or trade, but she needed a gastly for the rest of her plan to work. It ran off when it saw Anseri anyway, accompanied by Anseri's annoyed hissing. The next floor was a lot quieter though, so a gastly should show up sooner or later.

"Okay, Anseri, start looking." She told him once they emerged from the stairwell.

Anseri started grumbling again, and, instead, sat down next to a bouquet of daisies. Phillipa sighed, she supposed she didn't mind too much if he wasn't going to help look, as long as he would actually fight the gastly once she found it. Well, she knew he would fight it, but that didn't mean he would fight it in such a way that she could capture it. He would quiet happily just chase any ghosts off, which was not the plan at all.

She'd seen plenty of gastly in the tower before and they were usually a fairly peaceful lot, if a bit mischievous, so she knew she wasn't in danger per se, but she couldn't catch one if it wasn't weakened first. Hence why she needed Anseri on her side, at least for this bit.

After twenty minutes of looking behind tombstones and in shadows, Phillipa glanced at Anseri to see if he had moved yet, but jumped when she saw a gastly hovering just over her shoulder. It had probably been there a while, and was looking to see if it could find what she was looking for. Gastly were pesky like that. It was fortunate she did want to catch it, because if a wild gastly was this close to you, then you would usually never get it to go away without a battle. They weren't aggressive, just...curious to a fault, she supposed.

"Hey Anseri, use water gun on this guy." Phillipa hesitantly suggested, though she had intended for it to come out as a command.

Anseri just sat up, looked at the gastly, and yawned.

"C'mon, this is why we're here, and we need this guy to get you home!"

Anseri considered the gastly, then fired a water pulse at it. The gastly, who had turned itself around until it was watching Phillipa upside down, was slammed in to the far wall. It almost dissipated into the air, but managed to pull itself back together. It slowly floated upwads, seeming to aim for the ceiling, but Phillipa threw one of her new pokeballs at it. It disappeared in a flash of red light, then the ball fell back to the ground. It tried to bounce and wobble at the same time and ended up careening around the floor, but eventually it lay still.

"There. Was that so hard, Anseri?" Phillipa demanded, annoyed.

Yes, she had the gastly, but it was pretty hurt now, so she had to make a trip to the pokemon center for it, which was pretty hard to not get caught at. If Anseri had used water gun, she could have whittled the gastly's health down a bit, and avoided the pokemon center trip. Well, if anyone asked, she would just say Anseri sprained a leg or something.

Phillipa's glare softened, however, when she saw that Anseri was breathing pretty heavily from the fight, even though he only used one attack.

"Yeah, you're not battling any more." Phillipa said, returning Anseri to his ball. Looks like she really did have to make a trip to the center for him.

She dashed back down the stairs to the floor below, then down the next flight. Even though the gastly were usually harmless, it was still a pretty stupid idea to wander around their tower without some form of protection.

"How did it go?" The receptionist had changed; now Phillipa's friend, Ruth, was sitting at the desk.

"Step one complete, but with complications. Anseri is worse than I thought and I need to take him to the center." Phillipa replied

Phillipa had been friends with Ruth for years, and she was the only one that knew her full plans.

"I've got some potions if you want..." Ruth offered

"I would, but Anseri isn't exactly injured, so I want the nurse to look him over." Phillipa replied

"He's getting on ridiculously old, isn't he?"

"Thirty two."

"So, basically, he's dying from old age?"

"Yep"

"Is he going to make it to the lake?"

"I hope so. I mean, he's a miserable bastard that hates my guts, and the feeling is pretty much mutual, but it's 'cause of him that I can do this."

"You know, you could have borrowed my magnemite, right?"

"Your magnemite pretends that everyone except you doesn't exist." Phillipa replied dryly.

Ruth laughed in response.

"Hey, you said you were gonna ask at work if you could stash your stuff there, how did that go?"

"Sandy said I could stow it all in the office."

"Nice! Because, I love you and all, but I don't think my bedroom could hold much, nor could I hide it from my parents."

"Lol."

"Hey, no chatspeak in actual conversations!"

Phillipa just laughed as she walked out of the tower.

"I'll see you later!" She yelled behind her

"Yeah, see ya!" She heard Ruth call back

"Or would that be 'c u l8er'?"

"No it wouldn't!"

Phillipa grinned as she started jogging, hoping to get to the center in enough time that she could eat dinner there too. She used to volunteer in the kitchens a few nights a week, so they wouldn't mind if she grabbed some food during her visit.

Lavender Town was so small, that there were few jobs for their youth, many ended up moving away to make a living. But there were lots of volunteer opportunities for those still living at home. Anyone who could would volunteer at the pokemon center, because they would feed you and it looked really good on a resume. Anyone else who wanted to volunteer, but didn't get accepted to the center, went to the Tower, because even though they didn't feed you, it still looked better to employers than sitting on your butt every evening.

The pokemon center lobby was empty except for a person behind the desk, a boy she vaguely recognized from school.

"Two pokemon, one might need a nurse, I'm not sure." Phillipa told him

The boy nodded and held his hand out for her pokemon card. She pulled it out of her wallet and gave him it, glad that trainer records automatically became confidential once the trainer reached sixteen.

"The golduck is under my mother's name, Emily Chmela."

"Anseri?" The boy asked, after pulling up her mom's profile

"Yeah, that's him."

"Man, he's old. I'll call a nurse up to look at him, regardless. He'll probably have a couple questions for you."

Phillipa nodded; she had been on desk duty plenty of times and knew how the process worked.

The gastly's pokeball was put on the machine that would heal any minor wound, restore fatigue, and get rid of statuses. Everyone loved those machines.

"And the gastly is to be registered to yourself?" The boy asked after the machine finished its whirring.

"Yep."

"Name?"

"Genesis." Phillipa replied, it was a rather traditional name, hardly used any more, but it meant 'beginning' which is what this gastly was.

"Okay. I'd tell you it's gender, but it doesn't have one, and I'd tell you it's weight, but it's doesn't really have one of them either. Hmm, as it's your first pokemon, I'd also tell you it's diet and recommended sleeping arrangements, but it doesn't have any of them either."

They both laughed.

"Anyway, he's fine, so you can have him back, and I'm not sure how long the nurse is going to be. Mike's on duty and he's currently setting a broken leg." Darren, she was pretty sure his name was Darren, said while handing her back her gastly.

"That's fine, I'll go grab some food. I'll be back in a bit."

"Okay, see you."

Phillipa waved goodbye at him before nipping down the staff only corridor that was a short cut to the cafeteria, because she might not volunteer there any more, but she still knew enough of the paid staff that they wouldn't mind.

The cafeteria was hardly any busier than the lobby. It was getting late, so most people had already gotten their dinner, though hopefully what was left would still be hot. Skirting along the wall, Phillipa eventually got to the large dishes of food. She grabbed a tray and a plate and started down the counter, serving herself a large lump of cold rice, and a generous spoonful of steaming hot curry. In a perfect world, the two would mix together to make something that was comfortably hot. She grabbed a set of chopsticks before scanning the tables for an empty spot.

Most of the tables were empty, but there were still a couple with groups of people at them. Phillipa slid in to a seat at a table with five other people, all listening to a girl at the end tell the story of how she found an onix in rock tunnel a couple days ago. Phillipa tuned her out, most of it was probably exaggerated anyway, and concentrated on eating her dinner.

She quickly finished eating and put her dishes in a large tray of soapy water, then left for the lobby again. When she arrived, Mike was there, talking to probably-Darren at the desk.

"So, I examined your golduck," Mike started when he saw Phillipa, "did he do anything strenuous before he started with the heavy breathing?"

"He battled a gastly, but he only used one water pulse, and he chose to use such a strong attack, I'd told him to use a water gun." Phillipa replied

"Right. Well, considering his age, and his already failing health, I'm afraid to say he's now on his last legs. I understand your mother inherited him?"

"Yeah, from my grampa. Anseri was starting to fail in health while grampa was alive, and to be honest, has only gotten worse since his death. We've suspected for a while that he wasn't going to last much longer."

"He probably has a couple weeks left in him, but no more battles! Is that clear?" Mike demanded

"Crystal clear. It was kinda emergency circumstances, otherwise it would never have happened."

That was a bit of a lie, she did need a gastly, but it wasn't exactly an emergency at this point. Honestly, she had pretty much expected that she would be taking Anseri back to the Lake of Rage to die; it was his home and he wasn't enjoying his life any more, so if it meant she could get away at the same time, she would take him somewhere comforting for his death.

Mike appeared to believe her, though. He nodded at her before bidding the both of them goodbye and leaving down the corridor Phillipa had just came from, probably to get some dinner of his own.

"Here's Anseri back." Probably-Darren said, handing her Anseri's pokeball

"Thanks." Phillipa replied

She left the pokemon center and slowly started walking home. She couldn't think of anywhere she could go with such short notice, so she prepared herself for her step-father's tirade.

He would yell about how she had been somewhere other than the Tower, then yell about her dead end job, even though she was one of the few youths in town with a job and got paid a fair bit higher than minimum wage. Then he would probably yell about how she had eaten at the center, even though he won't have saved her any dinner, then yell about Anseri when she explained that he was dying. Then she would say she had to do homework, he would yell at her about being lazy or some such, and she would go to her room and complain on facebook, then maybe study for her exams.

She may have 'accidentally' forgotten to tell her parents that classes were cancelled during the exam weeks, but it meant her step-father would stay out of her business for the time being. Even if she did have to stay at school all day. As soon as she got the tracker bracelet off her wrist (that was step three in her plan) she would be able to leave it at the school and spend her free time in Route 8, trying to find a fire pokemon, or around town, or anywhere.

True to form, her step-father started his verbal assault as soon as she opened the door. Her mom seemed resigned, but not unsurprised at the news about Anseri. Phillipa made her escape as soon as she could and shut the bedroom door behind her.

She didn't want to leave Lavender Town because of what her step-father said to her, she could just solve that by moving out, she wanted to leave because she had started to believe it. A pretty good accomplishment on his behalf, considering he hadn't even been around for a full year yet. Phillipa hadn't noticed the change in her behaviour, but Ruth had; and she was more than willing to try and beat some sense in to Phillipa's head, courtesy of her chemistry textbook.

Saturday

Phillipa had to go to work in the afternoon, but she spent the morning at the edge of Lavender Town, on the border of Route 8. She couldn't go in the actual route, but she had carefully explained to Gen that she needed a mankey, and that he had to taunt it to come back, not just fight it. This was probably the most risky part of her plan (this was step two, by the way). If her step-father happened to see her, she wouldn't be able to explain what she was doing, and Gen might not be able to find a mankey, or lure it back to her. Or it might even get bored and go back to the tower; new pokemon were known to do that. So Phillipa spent the morning before her shift at work sitting under some bushes, half heartedly studying for her Math exam on Monday.

It was lunch time before Gen returned, mankeyless, and she had to leave for her shift at work. She reassured it on the way; it seemed disgruntled that it couldn't bring one back for her. If nothing else, it boded well for having a pokemon that would actually listen to her, if nothing else.

It took a week for Gen to get a mankey. It had found them a few times, but apparently mean look only stopped pokemon from running away, it didn't force them to follow the pokemon that used it, so it took a couple tries to actually get one back. When Gen finally returned with a pissed off mankey in tow, it only took a couple minutes to capture it. It was a bit anti-climatic in the end; Gen just had to use a night shade and hypnosis on it, then Phillipa threw the pokeball. The ball stopped moving pretty quick, which usually meant that the pokemon in question was rather weak, but hopefully that was just because it was asleep.

She needed the mankey to break the lock on the chain keeping the tracker on her wrist. Really, who was so desperate to be in control that they get a GPS tracker made to look like a bracelet charm, then get a flipping padlock to keep it on your step-daughter's wrist? Her step-father apparently.

But right now, she had to rush to get to work on time. She would take the mankey to the pokemon center to register it later, probably after work.

Monday

The next day, after her English exam, Phillipa sat down on the school's field and sent out her mankey.

"Okay Libby, can you pull this apart?" Phillipa asked, holding out her wrist with the bracelet, positioning it so the padlock was in plain view.

Yes, she'd named her Libby. Yes, Libby was short for Liberty. Yes, she was really sentimental with names, she'd always been like that and she didn't see it stopping any time soon.

Despite the lack of fight she'd put up with the pokeball yesterday, the padlock pulled apart easily in Libby's fingers.

"Wow. You're pretty strong, you know that?" Phillipa told her, who perked up at the compliment.

Libby hadn't seemed as immediately cheerful about having a trainer as Gen had been. So Phillipa had spent most of last evening looking through all her draws, cupboards, and piles of junk to try and find that soothe bell. When she eventually found it, she'd loosely tied it to Libby's wrist. The mankey hadn't been too happy about the bell on her wrist, until she moved it enough that it made its characteristic chiming. After that she had loved it, and spent most of her time jingling the bell. Phillipa had had to return her so that neither of her parents came up to investigate the noise.

Step three was now complete. She could now leave the transmitter at school on week days and spend her time on Route 8 looking for a fire pokemon, preferably a vulpix; they're smaller and less energetic than growlithe. It also meant that when she left, her step-father wouldn't know immediately; she could just leave the transmitter at school when she left. Or in someone's garbage can, Friday was garbage day, after all. She had to admit, it would be funny to watch her step-father's reaction when the transmitter said she was at the landfill. Saffron City landfill too, Lavender Town wasn't big enough to have its own. Then again, she would be walking towards Saffron, so maybe that wasn't the best idea.

She could also complete step four tomorrow at the school computer lab when she went to drop off the transmitter: book her train ticket to Goldenrod City.

Step four meant she could leave. Step five, the fire pokemon, would help but wasn't necessary. It meant she would have a pokemon super effective against bug and grass pokemon, which were common as dirt in most routes; one that wasn't super effective against her mankey and possibly cause friction between the two. But if she couldn't find one, she wasn't going to put her plans on hold.

Phillipa spent the rest of the afternoon letting Gen and Libby get to know each other. She had worried a bit about Gen's immunity to fighting and normal attacks putting Libby on the defensive. But she needn't have worried, Gen was sufficiently non-confrontational that the two spent most of their time chasing each other around. When Gen floated too high, Libby just hopped on Phillipa's back and jingled her bell.

She experienced her first mankey rampage too. Gen had managed to get Libby's bell off her wrist and started to float off with it. Before Phillipa could call it back, Libby started screeching at it. When that go no response, she decided to take it out on the closest target, namely Phillipa.

Before she could blink, Libby had a handful of her hair and was pulling painfully hard. Phillipa swatted at her to try and make her let go, but she started scratching at her arm instead. Libby got a kick to the face, just as she managed to break the skin on Phillipa's arm, leaving three long, but shallow, oozing wounds. Libby was pushed back by the kick, and was about to leap forward to continue her assault, but fell asleep mid-jump.

Phillipa glanced around to see Gen hovering over her shoulder, looking apologetically at her.

"How about we let Libby keep her bell from now on?" Phillipa sarcastically asked Gen.

Gen nodded morosely and dropped the soothe bell on Libby's hand.

Phillipa retied the bell to her wrist, a little tighter than before, then returned her to her pokeball. Hopefully she would have calmed down by the time she was let out again.

Tuesday

The next day, Phillipa walked to school to book her train ticket. She'd decided not to pay until she got to the station, though. If she happened to miss her train, she wouldn't get a refund and would still have to pay for a second ticket.

She didn't work today, so she planned on spending the day looking for a vulpix. Or growlithe, if she had to.

She left her tracker bracelet with the school office. The receptionist thought it was an odd request, but was willing to do it, and it meant no one would take it from a potential hiding spot and she could get it back later.

The school was next to the route, so she knew the risks of anyone seeing her as she left town were pretty low. She still walked pretty fast, and soon she was in the tall, wavy grass of Route 8. She used to come here pretty often with her mom's persian, but according to her step-father, the routes were not somewhere where a young woman should be going. She vaguely wondered if he had always had such a large stick up his ass.

Her method of battling didn't much approach the one used by other trainers. Phillipa had gotten her licence at ten, because everyone did, but had never had a pokemon of her own until she caught Gen. Her mother had offered, but she had never had much interest in living in the wilderness for weeks on end, just for the chance to battle for some pokey little badges. So Libby would beat up anything she could, and Gen used hypnosis on everything else, both without any instruction from her. Libby was getting more used to her, if riding on her back at every opportunity was anything to go by.

She hadn't found any fire pokemon by the time she left for the school, but that was okay, she still had a bit of time. Libby, predictably, was no good at any kind of ranged battle, which would be solved once she found a fire pokemon. Gen could have battled at a distance, but she had found that the ghost was not very fond of any kind of battling, preferring to send it's opponents to sleep. Though when it came down to it, Phillipa thought Gen's hypnosis could be more useful than a ranged pokemon.

After getting the bracelet back from the office and stuffing it in her bag, she headed home. She'd thought of loitering around somewhere, or going to bug one of her friends, but time would be tight in the next couple days, and she really should study for her last exam.

Her step-father was at work, so, once she got home, it was just her and her mom. Even though her mom had changed a lot since she got remarried, it was almost a nice evening. Phillipa was nagged about her exams, but mostly, she just found it amusing that her mom had figured out that it was now exam week, but her step-father hadn't.

They had pepperoni and mushroom pizza for dinner. Well, her mom did; Phillipa had pepperoni pizza because mushrooms were disgusting, so she picked them off and fed them to Clock, their pet spearow.

Phillipa knew she would miss Clock, he was always so friendly, even if he did keep trying to steal her hair ties. She wouldn't miss him being extra cheerful when the sun rose every morning. It wasn't so bad in the winter, but was a nightmare in the summer.

Phillipa left the kitchen when she heard her step-father's car pull into the drive and headed back up to her room to study for her history exam. She technically had a day and a half before sitting it. In actuality, she was going to spend tomorrow morning hunting for a fire pokemon again, then working her last shift at the pokemart, pack Thursday morning, then sit her exam in the afternoon. So she really wasn't getting much study time. But it was history, no one really cared about history and neither did she. But, the day after her history exam, she was leaving. She couldn't wait.

Wednesday

The morning was bright and sunny, a nice change from the overcast weather from the past few days. Especially as fire pokemon liked warm weather, so hopefully they would be wandering around a bit more. Phillipa packed her school bag with as many clothes as it could fit. It was rather full and very heavy by the time she was done, but she wasn't worried. She would drop it off at work on her way out of town, then she wouldn't have to carry it everywhere.

When she went downstairs for breakfast, she found her mom had made omelettes, a rare occurrence.

"What's the occasion?" Phillipa asked

"Oh, nothing much." Her mom replied, breezily.

Definitely strange behaviour for her mom.

Phillipa grabbed a clean plate off the drying rack, just in time for her mom to slide an omelette on to it. Phillipa inspected it; sausage, cheese, and pepper. A strange combination, but it had always been her favourite. Mom hadn't made her her favourite kind of omelette since she got married.

"No, really, what's up?" Phillipa asked again as she sat at the table

Her mom sighed.

"You know that I love you, right?" Her mom asked

Phillipa was surprised, this was completely out of the blue. Unless she had figured out, somehow, that Phillipa was leaving. She supposed it wasn't that surprising, her mom always had been rather perceptive. Or Clock had been spying on her and reporting back to her mom.

"Of course I do." Phillipa replied

It was true; she would happily leave her step-father to rot and die in a hole in the ground, but she'd always known her mother cared for her, even with the increase in general bitchiness over the past few months. She knew it enough to make her feel slightly guilty about leaving without a word. Not guilty enough to make Phillipa tell her, of course.

"Well, just try not to forget it, okay?"

"Sure, mom."

Yeah, mom definitely knew what was going on. Even if Clock had been spying on her, mom wouldn't necessarily believe him. But mom knew her far too well to not see the signs after being given a warning. Stupid spearow.

"And don't get in to anything over your head."

That spearow was going to be barbecued.

"I won't."

"You won't what?" Her step-father demanded, coming in to the kitchen just in time to hear Phillipa's reply

"Procrastinate studying for her exams." Her mother cut in, "She's already started review in class."

Maybe she wouldn't cut her mom out of her life when she left. She could phone sometimes, or email. Emails could be read by her step-father, though. She could phone when she knew he was at work, which wasn't always that easy as his shifts sometimes changed without much notice.

Phillipa ate the rest of her omelette quickly, wanting to hear as little complaining about the supposed idiots at her step-father's job as possible. He usually stuck to ranting about his own life in the mornings, ignoring all the faults in Phillipa's until later on in the day.

Soon, she was back outside with her overstuffed bag on her back, heading to work to drop it off. When she arrived, Sandy was busy dealing with customers, so she just placed it with the rest of her stuff in the office and left as quietly as she had come in.

As she passed the school, she once again handed the tracker bracelet over to the office lady, then headed back out to Route 8. She had several hours before she had to head back in for work and intended to make use of every minute of it.

She ended up finding a ninetails mother with her kits barely an hour in. After running away from the powerful fire pokemon, she then found a lone vulpix sunning itself on a rock. It was apparently her lucky day, probably because she was out looking for herself and not relying on Gen to find and bring one back.

"Go Gen! Use mean look." Phillipa ordered, while throwing Gen's pokeball.

Genesis appeared in a flash and, even though Phillipa couldn't see the actual attack, she knew it had worked; the vulpix had been ignoring them, but it suddenly spun around so that it was facing the gastly.

"Go Libby." Phillipa sent Liberty out too, who materialized behind the vulpix.

Technically, she was cheating by using two pokemon at once. Technically, she didn't care.

"Libby, use leer."

The vulpix shied away from Libby, before letting loose an ember at Gen.

"Libby, use karate chop; Gen, hypnosis."

Libby sprang forward, chopping the vulpix in the leg. It spun around so it could defend itself from the mankey, leaving it's back open to Gen. Unfortunately, this meant that instead of the vulpix facing Gen, only Libby was. Libby got the full force of the hypnosis and fell asleep, right as the vulpix used a quick attack on it.

"Crap." Phillipa swore before returning Libby, "Gen, use lick."

Gen hesitated, it _really_ wasn't a fan of battling, especially physical attacks.

"Night shade?" She asked

Gen was happier about that one. The shadows in the grass suddenly started clumping together underneath the vulpix. They quickly rose up, engulfing the vulpix in darkness before everything returned to a more natural level of lighting. The vulpix wobbled on it's feet, but still managed to use a quick attack on Gen.

"Use hypnosis again." Phillipa said as the vulpix jumped through the intangible ghost.

This time, the vulpix got the hit by the hypnosis, and collapsed in a heap. Phillipa threw a ball at it and a couple of seconds later, it was still.

Now she had about five hours to kill before she had to go to work, and no pokemon she had to rush around and find. She could go to the pokemon center and heal them up, then she supposed she could try to make up with the vulpix; wild pokemon weren't usually impressed when you teamed up two pokemon against them. Still, she had one sure fire way of cheering up the vulpix. Well, she had two, but she had already given the soothe bell to Libby, and she wasn't going to take it back off her. So she had one sure fire way, and that was bribery. She'd use some of her savings to buy it a charcoal at the pokemart.

Phillipa walked to the pokemon center, bypassing her school for now, and quickly got her three pokemon healed and the vulpix registered. She then went to work and bought the charcoal. Finally, she turned around and went back to school to get her tracker bracelet.

She spent the rest of the afternoon lounging on the school field with a couple classmates. She had Chris, the vulpix, out as much as she could, letting him get used to her. He didn't seem that interested in her, but was certainly happy about the charcoal. She introduced him to Gen, and they got on well, but Gen got on well with everyone. She also introduced him to Libby, who he wasn't much impressed with. Libby reacted in the natural mankey way, and the two promptly started squabbling.

Libby had pulled on three of Chris's tails, bit an ear, and kicked him on the side before Phillipa managed to separate them. It would have been over when she picked Libby up, holding her out of the way, but Chris then took the opportunity to jump up and bite down on her tail. Fortunately, one of the boys in her class recalled the both of them to their pokeballs before things could escalate again.

"They'll get over it." Was his only comment to the embarrassed Phillipa, though the rest of the group seemed to find it funny.

Eventually, the group split up. Most of them were heading home, but Phillipa headed back to work. This was her last shift, but Phillipa had managed to put off the emotional weeping stuff that Sandy was sure to perform by coming in the next day, to finish packing and pick up her last pay cheque.

Thursday

The next morning, Sandy was as tearful as Phillipa had expected. But today was one of those randomly busy days, so Sandy had other things to concentrate on. Phillipa spent the morning in the office, carefully packing all the things she had gradually brought to the mart. Most of it was clothes, but there was also her sleeping bag and pillow, a tarp for emergencies, a small pot, a large water bottle, and several lighters, among other things. In the end, her bag wasn't too heavy. It would be uncomfortable, but manageable.

She left around lunch time, without her rucksack, munching the sandwiches she had brought from home as she walked towards the school and her last exam. It was still early when she arrived and frankly, this was the wrong day for it; she was leaving first thing tomorrow morning and was full of nerves. Eventually, she found Ruth.

She was going to Ruth's for dinner tonight, and was keeping her rucksack overnight in their garage. It would be safe from discovery for the one night. Ruth's dad was the only one that went in there, and he was currently on a business trip to Celadon City.

The two chatted for about twenty minutes before they were allowed inside the gym. Most of it was Ruth giving Phillipa tips for her pokemon, or the pair of them comparing notes from their studies. Ruth herself hadn't left for a pokemon journey, but both her brothers had, and she had her magnemite, so she still had more experience than Phillipa.

"Good luck." They whispered to each other when the doors opened. They weren't allowed to choose their seats; like most schools, in order to avoid any semblance of free will in the examination process, they had to sit in alphabetical order. While Ruth Abarca was close to Phillipa Chemela, it wasn't close enough that they could chat while they waited for the exam to actually start. So they sat in silence at the desk that had the exam with their name on it, as students slowly trickled into the gym.

In the beginning of the exam period, the rows of desks had been straight enough that they could have been placed using a ruler. However, numerous butts moving in and out of them over the past two weeks had shifted them so that they now looked more like an ekans that had been smoking something illegal.

Eventually, the examiner at the front of the gym proclaimed that the exam had started, and they had three hours to complete it. He had a good voice for it too, Phillipa thought vaguely, nice and echo-y.

Just under an hour and a half later, Phillipa walked out the gym, not sure if she had found the exam easy because it was easy, or because she had done a terrible job of it. Either way, it was over. The last thing she had to finish before she left was now done. Of course, she needed her diploma that proved she had graduated, but those would be mailed out in a few weeks. She had told the school that she was starting a journey and would send them her new address when she found out what it was. They didn't ask why she didn't just want it mailed to her parents, though they did point out that she had six weeks before it would be sent to them by default. That was fine, Phillipa had no intention of travelling for that long anyway.

She waited outside the gym for Ruth to appear. When she did, the two of them walked to the pokemart to pick up Phillipa's rucksack and her cheque. On the way to Ruth's, she deposited the cheque into her account. Their normal route didn't pass by the bank, but it only added about ten minutes to make the detour. It would take a couple days for the cheque to go through the system, which meant she couldn't withdraw it before she left, but life wasn't perfect like that.

Dinner that evening was relaxing. Ruth's mom knew something was up, but was too polite to ask. They had vegetarian lasagne, which was actually nicer than it sounded, even if it did lack sweet, delicious meat.

Eventually, Phillipa had to leave. She had asked a few days ago if she could stay overnight, but her step-father had said no. She had considered staying over anyway, but now she wanted to say goodbye to her mom. It was all because of that omelette.

Phillipa trudged home, not wanting to put up with her step-father on her last night before she left everything behind. She entered the house as quietly as she could, not that she needed to. A hockey game was on, and her step-father had it on the TV with the volume pretty much on maximum. He would be oblivious to the rest of the world until it finished.

Friday

Last night, her step-father had apparently gone out for a couple drinks with his friends and had had one too many. He didn't appear at breakfast, claiming that he was dying from a hangover. It was just Phillipa and her mom again, and Phillipa found herself getting a lot more emotional than she thought she would.

"Bye mom." Phillipa said softly as she stood by the door.

"Goodbye Phillipa." Her mom replied, "I love you."

"Love you too." Phillipa said, surprised that she was almost choking up.

She dashed out the front door before she actually started crying. A quick jog to Ruth's helped clear her head, so she was almost cheerful when she knocked on the door. That lasted all of two minutes after Ruth answered it.

The two girls were in the garage, Phillipa had donned her rucksack, and they were both bawling their eyes out.

"Make sure you call me every time you get to a town, you hear me?" Ruth ordered while giving Phillipa a bone crushing hug.

"You bet I will." Phillipa reassured her, squeezing back just as hard.

"You should probably get going." Ruth said

"Yeah."

Neither girl moved for another minute.

"Right. I'm going." Phillipa said, eventually.

She straightened up with a large sniff and Ruth pulled away in response.

"Yeah, don't want to miss your train. Make sure you send me your address as soon as you get one."

Phillipa merely nodded.

"Bye." She said before ducking underneath the half open garage door

"Bye Phil." Ruth replied behind her, causing her to chuckle damply, she'd always hated that nickname.

Phillipa was most of the way down the street before she heard a garage door close in the distance.


	2. Chapter 2

Friday

The sun was bright as Phillipa entered Route 8. Even out of town, she still had the occasional sniffle, but Gen was out of its ball, and was floating around her in an attempt to cheer her up. The faces it pulled at her were helpful, but not near as helpful as the idea that most wild pokemon didn't like ghosts and so tended to avoid them.

There was two ways through Route 8, either through the grass and trees, or along the path. The path was slightly longer, but much easier to walk though and, unfortunately, packed with trainers. She had tossed the tracker bracelet into a random plant pot, but that wouldn't help if she was seen by every trainer between here and Saffron City. All it would take was one person to go to Lavender, and, once it became public knowledge that she had essentially ran off, she'd be caught in a heartbeat. No, she had to stay hidden until she was in Johto, and that meant she had to walk through the grass.

Phillipa took off at a pace that was hopefully fast enough that she would get to Saffron City with plenty of time, but slow enough that she wouldn't be too tired before she got there.

Soon, the trees that had been getting bigger and closer to the path, opened out to a large meadow. Once she got across it, she would be most of the way to Saffron.

She let Libby out of her ball once she was far enough from the trees that she couldn't just take off. The mankey galloped through the tall grass for a while, then jumped up and grabbed the bottom of Phillipa's pack. She almost fell at the sudden shift in weight, but Libby quickly scaled the fabric and perched on top of the sleeping bag that she'd tied to the top.

"What's wrong with walking?" She asked her.

Libby replied with a series of grunts that were completely incomprehensible to Phillipa, so she just let her have the free ride. She knew that baby mankeys rode around on their mothers backs, but she was sure that Libby wasn't a baby. The pokemon center would have told her if she'd caught a baby, right? Maybe the grass was just too long for her to see, and so she'd climbed her like she would a tree. Yeah, that made more sense.

It was midday when she got to the other side of the meadow, sweat running down her face, soaking the back of her t-shirt, and, rather annoyingly, trickling down between her breasts. Phillipa entered the trees, cursing the sun, the lack of wind, and being born a girl; if she was a guy, she could just take her shirt off and let the sweat evaporate instead of soaking her shirt, and she wouldn't even have breasts for the sweat to run between in the first place. And no more periods, that would be the best part of all.

Once under the shade of the trees, Libby started to eye the branches spreading out above them, so Phillipa returned her and sent out Chris instead. He'd have no desire to start climbing trees, though she hoped he wouldn't decide to just run off.

Unlike Libby, who had spent the morning clinging to her backback and occasionally messing up her hair, Chris completely ignored her. He made sure to never get too far away from her, which was a relief, but spent more time sniffing around trees and under bushes than anything else. Gen sometimes tried to draw him closer, only to be rebuked each time. At least he didn't try to set it on fire.

An hour later, they emerged back into the sunlight, this time into a clearing in front of the gatehouse for Saffron City. Phillipa glanced at her watch, 1:05pm, she should have enough time to make the train, though they liked you there super early.

She returned Chris once they reached the gatehouse, not wanting him to accidentally, or intentionally, get separated from them in the busy city. She trusted Gen to continue floating along after her and stay out of other people's way; it'd had plenty of opportunity to decide to not come back when looking for Libby, so she doubted it was going to change its mind now.

The gatehouse was refreshing and cool; pity it couldn't last. After getting directions from the gatekeeper, it was back out into the sunshine, this time in Saffron City. The concrete paths, asphalt roads, and glass buildings reflected the sunlight back instead of absorbing it like the trees and grass had; when combined with the body heat from the masses of people on the streets, it made the city almost unbearable.

Phillipa glanced at her watch again, 1:30pm; she still had plenty of time but the train station was sure to be air conditioned, so the sooner she got there, the sooner she could cool off.

The station was a pain to find, but she did find it in the end. The directions she'd been given hadn't been much help; between the traffic, the crowds hiding street signs and shop names, finding anything seemed impossible. Fortunately, heading in the vague direction she'd been told to led her to the railway tracks, which she then followed to the station. Once inside, the cool air felt wonderful on her skin and she hoped she'd have time to change before having to board the train.

Looking around, she saw that the lines weren't too bad. It didn't take long for the one she'd joined to shrink, and she was soon enough in front of a teller. She didn't have the ticket with her, but it was still booked in their computers under her name, and her trainer's card was enough for ID. She paid with her debit card and everything was going smoothly, until the teller informed her that all pokemon beyond that point had to be inside their pokeball. She was about to argue the point, but the bored expression on the teller's face implied that she wouldn't get very far with it. Glumly, she returned Gen to its ball and, with a nod from the teller, walked through to the 3:30 departure lounge.

There was a bathroom connected to the lounge, but, with no pokemon to guard her pack, she didn't feel comfortable leaving it behind to change into a less damp shirt. To kill time, she dug in her pack and pulled out a book. She was rereading the Discworld series, hoping she would be able to get engrossed in it enough that she wouldn't be too bored before the train arrived.

It didn't arrive until fifteen minutes before it was due to leave again. Phillipa stuffed her book back into her pack, and joined the growing line at the gate. The walls were just glass, so she half-heartedly watched as all the people disembarked the train; it emptied quickly, and everyone in the lounge was hurried on to the train almost as fast. It only took about ten minutes to switch the old passengers with the new, and a few minutes after that, everyone was seated and the train started pulling out of the station. Phillipa had to admit, the stewardesses were good at their job.

It would have been nice if the train ride had been long enough to nap. Unfortunately, it only lasted about half an hour and, once she arrived in Goldenrod City, she had to queue again, this time for customs. She'd had little enough gear with her, so she rushed off the train to try and get near the front of the line. As such, she only had to queue for about twenty minutes before she got a customs officer.

She had to re-register herself as a pokemon trainer, as well as all three of her pokemon. Her bag was slid through an x-ray machine and, after finding no weapons, explosives, drugs, porn, or other weapons of mass destruction, she was free to go.

It took a bit of wandering to find her way out of the train station, and then even longer to find the Goldenrod Pokemon Center; though it wasn't as bad as Saffron City. Once she got inside, she groaned to see that it was packed. She ought to have suspected it; Goldenrod was a large city, and a lot of trainers went though it.

The line for the desk was huge, so Phillipa instead went to the row of telephones on the wall. She had no intention of phoning her parents, but she'd phone Ruth and talk to her until the line died down.

Saturday

Emerging into the sunshine of Goldenrod City the next day, there was one more thing Phillipa had to buy before leaving. She wasn't sure where she would find a second hand shop that sold it, but she hoped it wouldn't take too long. The receptionist in the pokemon center had given her some directions, but Saffron City had taught her that directions don't always help.

She had Gen out while she was in town; it seemed the most easygoing around strange people, but it certainly wasn't much use in trying to find the second hand shop. It couldn't read any of the street signs and was more interested in looking in windows than looking for the gym, her first landmark.

They slowly walked north through town and the gym turned out to be ridiculously easy to find. It was a large, white building, directly on the main road, with the word "GYM" in large, bold letters emblazoned above the entrance. She turned to the left, away from the gym, and followed the road to a large, second hand shop.

When she went inside, she saw mostly clothes. Racks and racks of clothes were crammed together, with a few people wandering up and down the cramped rows. On the walls were shelves full of electronics, toys, and random kitchenware. At the back, was a narrow flight of stairs which was where Phillipa headed. Down the stairs were larger things: tables, chairs, sofas, mattresses and, at the back, a few bikes.

Phillipa headed straight for the bikes and looked them over. She was as much a bike maniac as she was a pokemon maniac, but she knew vaguely what she was looking for. There were three bikes, and all were mountain bikes, not road bikes. None of them had much rust, or anything obviously wrong with them. A quick test showed that the breaks worked on all of them, and the seats were equally padded.

She left the bikes to find someone who worked there; she would need a hand getting them out from where they were jammed in, and they might know a bit more about which bike would be best for her.

Twenty minutes of heaving and wiggling later, Phillipa bought the first bike she and the shop worker had managed to get out. He had told her that all three had been examined when they got them, and they were all about the same quality. $400 was pretty cheap for a bike, even if it was pretty old, but with the bike, she would be able to get from town to town much faster than she could walk.

It was mid morning by the time she got to Route 35, later than she had planned, but still early enough now that she had found a bike. Upon leaving the city limits, she returned Gen to its pokeball, leaving her with no visible pokemon, then hid all three of her pokeball inside a pocket. The plan: look like she was in a rush, wasn't a trainer, and get to the National Park with as few people challenging her as possible.

It mostly worked, out of the dozen or so trainers she saw, she only had to battle three of them, two of which she won. Thanks to Chris, she beat both the bug catchers, but lost to a man with a couple magmar. She'd given up instead of fighting until her pokemon were unconscious so that she could keep going instead of having to return to the pokemon center. The man hadn't been too happy with that, but she didn't care; within minutes she was biking again, leaving the man and his opinion of her far behind.

She had to admit, if nothing else, the National Park was worth visiting. There were just enough trees around to provide shade from the sun, enough open areas to bike through, and more flowers than she had ever seen in one place. There was also bug pokemon everywhere; ledyba were in every patch of flowers, spinerak, weedle, and caterpie were hidden in seemingly every tree, and pidgey fluttered above it all. Fortunately, none of them approached her, what with Chris now perched on top of her backpack.

Phillipa stopped for a late lunch at a large fountain in the middle of the park. She didn't have anything fancy, just a couple sandwiches she'd grabbed from the pokemon center before leaving. The bread was soggy, and the meat and cheese tasted fake, but it was still better than nothing.

She sat at the edge of the fountain, giggling as Chris chased the ledyba away, but calling him back when he decided chasing wasn't enough and resorted to breathing fire.

"Somehow, I don't think you're going to be too happy living in a town for the rest of your life." She told him when he came up to her and rested his forelegs on her knee.

He tilted his head to the side, as though considering her words, but then jumped up and stole the rest of her sandwich. Before she could even get up to chase him, he had already swallowed what was left. Radiating smugness, he sat down and started washing his tails.

"Really, Chris? That was my lunch." She admonished him, not that he paid any notice. "Well, if I can't eat, we might as well continue on."

She closed her pack and slung it onto her back. Chris was unceremoniously picked up and pushed back onto her pack, mostly in punishment for eating her sandwich. She picked her bike up from where it was leaning against the fountain and set off, following the path that would lead her to Route 36.

It took her another hour to get to the gatehouse, and by the time she arrived, she felt as though she hadn't eaten at all. Fortunately, they had a couple vending machines, so she got a bottle of pop and another sandwich, which turned out to be even less appetizing than the one from the pokemon center. It sat like a half a brick in her stomach, but at least it meant she had something in it.

Route 36 was much the same as the National park, except with less bugs all over the place. They probably fed the pokemon in the park to make them hang around people, either intentionally by the wardens, or by the guests ignoring any "don't feed the wild pokemon" rules. Probably the guests, because really, who would intentionally feed wild pokemon and have them associate humans with food? You were just asking for someone to get attacked.

Either way, there was none of that outside the park. There was lots of flowers, lots of trees, lots of grass, and no visible pokemon. She heard them, rustling in bushes and running off when they heard her approach, but didn't see any. Either they didn't want to get close to a human, they didn't like the noise of her bike, or they were terrified of Chris. It was probably the latter, but Phillipa didn't particularly care; she was happy as long as they avoided her. Of course, there was one down side to having Chris perched on her backpack as she biked.

"Hey, you!" She heard someone yell to her right.

She glanced towards them and saw a young teen with a raticate and a nidorino at his feet, and promptly started peddling faster. If other trainers weren't going to accept the fact that she had no interest in battling when she talked to them, then she wasn't even going to slow down when she could avoid the whole situation all together.

"Get back here! Coward!"

See? They act as though everyone wants to battle and then try to guilt or shame you into it if you don't.

A growling at her back told her that, regardless of her opinions on battling, they weren't shared by her vulpix.

"Look," she shouted over her shoulder, "once we get onto Route 37, there'll be less trainers, so we can take it easy and you can battle some wild pokemon, okay?"

The growling subsided, Chris was apparently satisfied with the prospect of fighting _something_. Phillipa was happy that she would only be fighting wild pokemon who didn't snark about her lack of battling plan, lack of control over her pokemon, and who were, quite frankly, weaker than most trainer's pokemon. She would prefer to battle no pokemon at all, but she'd learned to compromise a long time ago.

Though Phillipa saw a few other trainers, no more of them called out to her. Sooner than she thought she would, she jerked on the breaks as she came up to a large sign. Chris lost his balance and slammed into the back of her head, before almost sliding off. To stay up, he sank his teeth into her sleeve. Phillipa grabbed hold of him with her other arm and lowered him to the ground.

"This is the sign for Route 37." She told him, "I'll bike slower so you and run around and fight stuff, 'kay?"

Chris didn't look too pleased at the thought of having to run on his own feet instead of getting a ride. When Phillipa started peddling again, this time to the north, he followed along happily enough.

Less than ten minutes had passed before the pair were spotted by a couple trainers, and this time Phillipa wasn't going fast enough to discourage them. It also didn't help that she could either stop, or plow over a wigglytuff.

"Hey, wanna battle?" There was a pair of teenage girls sitting under a tree, presumably the wigglytuff belonged to one of them.

"Um, I'm kinda in a bit of a hurry." Phillipa said, lying through her teeth.

"Nah, it'll be fun, we can have a double battle." One girl said, while the other perked up at the idea.

"You have more than just the vulpix, right?" The other asked

"Yeah, but-"

"Great!" The first girl sent out a clefable, and the wigglytuff waddled over.

Phillipa sighed, this was why she tried to avoid the trainers. She sent out Libby; between the aggressive mankey and the peaceful gastly, it wasn't that hard a choice to make. She still had no idea what she should be telling them to do during a battle, but they'd managed to figure it out on their own so far. This would be the first time they'd battle together, though, and they still didn't get along with each other that much.

Upon appearing, Libby looked around and seemed ready to charge the clefable, only to get pounced on by Chris.

"This'll be easy." The teen with the clefable said to her friend.

Phillipa managed to pick Chris up by the scruff of his neck before they could escalate further.

"Libby, go after the wigglytuff." She told her, "Chris, the clefable."

She had to force his head around so that he looked at the clefable instead of glaring at Libby.

"C'mon, you wanted to battle, so battle the clefable."

She put him down and, after a moments hesitation, he shot an ember at the clefable.

Now that Chris wasn't going to jump Libby again, she looked over to see how she was doing with the wigglytuff, just in time to see her karate chop it on the head. The wigglytuff fell over and didn't get back up, much to the distress of its trainer. Vaguely, Phillipa wondered if it had been able to attack at all before Libby downed it.

The trainer recalled the wigglytuff with a sniff, only to send out a second clefable in its stead. Phillipa gulped, she'd thought that this was only a two verses two battle. She turned back to Chris, sure that Libby could beat the clefable as easily as the wigglytuff.

Chris was staggering around, unable to get his feet under him. The clefable had a burn down one side, so she knew she had missed either a particularly strong ember, or a will-o-wisp. Chris was knocked down by a doubleslap, which was quickly followed by a sing.

Phillipa returned him, she'd rather she lost the fight with a relatively still healthy vulpix, than wait for him to wake up and risk having to backtrack to a pokemon center. She sent out Gen, not wanting both clefable to gang up on Libby.

"Gen, go help Libby." She told it

Gen grinned at her and floated towards where Libby was trying to hit the clefable, who had used minimize and was hopping around all of her attacks. Gen used a confuse ray over Libby's shoulder, and the clefable immediately tripped and fell on its face. Libby took the opportunity to give it a good kick. The confused clefable was recalled, but the other one was already attacking Libby.

Libby managed to scratch it, but was knocked out by a pound attack. Phillipa returned her, wondering what do to now. Gen was immune to normal attacks, so could potentially win this with little trouble, as long as it would actually fight.

"We yield."

Or that could happen; she loved type immunities sometimes. Too bad Chris was asleep, it meant she would have to keep Gen out to scare off any wild pokemon; though it certainly wouldn't complain if she biked faster to avoid battles.

"Here's your prize money." The girl that had sent out two pokemon held out a rather thick wad of notes. Sweet.

"Thanks." Phillipa said as she took the money, getting a glare from the other girl.

"What's with the look?" Phillipa asked her, "You challenged me, if you remember."

"Yeah, but we didn't think you'd have a gastly with you." She complained.

Phillipa just rolled her eyes; they complained about her gastly when they had two clefables and a wigglytuff? That was a bit rich. How did they even get that many moon stones, anyway? Did they have a family member in a mining company or something?

"Bye." She told them curtly, before waving at Gen to follow her.

She took off along the path, at a pace closer to what she'd used coming out of the National Park than the one she'd used on this route so far. It paid off too, not even twenty minutes later, she passed another trainer, this one with a drowzee by his side. She was past him before he even looked up from whatever he was doing in his lap.

She had to slow down a bit when the dirt path gave way to grass, but still managed to keep a fast enough pace that she reached Ecruteak City by late afternoon.

Once she inside the city limits, she slowed to a stop. Her legs were aching from the fast pace and would welcome a bit of walking. Randomly challenging other trainers to a battle was illegal in most cities, arenas excluded of course, so she didn't need to keep up the fast pace anymore.

Very conveniently, the Pokemon Center was right next to the archway at the city entrance.

Phillipa pushed her bike into a bike rack, then paused. A bike lock; she knew she'd forgotten something.

"Gen, guard my bike."

Hopefully that would be enough to stop anyone trying to run off with it; she had no idea what crime was like in Johto. If she was still in Lavender Town, she could have left it and it would still have been there a week later, but she wasn't in Lavender and so didn't want to take the risk.

She went inside the center, and was pleased to find that, though there was quite a few people around, the line in front of the desk was rather short.

"A room for one night, two pokemon to be healed, and do you sell bike locks?" Phillipa gasped once she got to the desk, holding out Libby's and Chris's pokeballs and her trainer card.

"You're in room number four," the woman at the desk said, once she'd scanned Phillipa's card, "there'll be a bit of a wait on getting your pokemon healed, and we don't sell bike locks, but the pokemart does."

After leaving her two pokeballs with the woman, Phillipa left the pokemon center in order to find the pokemart.

"Gastly, gastly!"

Phillipa turned around to see Gen inching away from her bike.

"Stay there, Gen, I'll just be a couple minutes then I'm coming right back." She told it

"Gast..." Gen sighed, before floating back to the bike.

It didn't take long for Phillipa to find the mart, it was just on the next street up. Unfortunately, it was pretty packed with people; she would have just come back later, but she didn't want to have to force Gen to guard her bike for too long.

She was fortunate that she'd worked at a pokemart for so many years because, thanks to all of the other people jammed in, it would have taken her ages to find the locks stashed at the far left corner. She still got an accidental elbow in her side as she squeezed her way to the back, but at least she only had to brave the masses once.

Phillipa grabbed the cheapest lock she could find. It probably wouldn't last as long, or be as theft resistant as a more expensive one, but really, $1500 for a bike lock? That's more than she spent on her bike! $200 was more than enough for her.

The line was hardly moving, and her legs, back, and butt started to ache from the biking. She hadn't even thought to drop her backpack off in her room before coming here. She wasn't carrying it any more; it was on the ground, being kicked forward a foot or so every time the line moved.

To distract herself from the waiting, she pulled out the wad of notes she'd gotten from all the battles she'd been forced into that day. Quickly thumbing through it, she counted just over four grand. That was ridiculous; she made about six thousand in an entire shift at work, and she'd made two thirds of that in what was probably an hour of battling. If that was the kind of money she could make battling, maybe in the future she wouldn't avoid trainers like the plague. Though, three quarters of that was from those two teenagers on Route 37, so maybe it wasn't as lucrative as she thought.

"NEXT!"

Oh, that was her.

Phillipa put off her musings in order to pay for her lock. She paid with the newly won cash, hauled her pack back up off the floor, and left to go relieve Gen from its post.

When she got back to the pokemon center, Gen was still at her bike, but was pulling faces at any passersby.

"Stop that, Gen." She told him, but found it hard not to laugh when it pulled a face at her instead.

"C'mon, the bike's safe now, so lets go see if they've healed Libby and Chris yet."

Sunday

Phillipa was sitting at the edge of the large river that flowed across Route 42, considering what to do. She'd known the river was there, she'd known she'd have to get across it, but last time she'd been here, there had been a boat service that would take you across. But that was almost ten years ago, now the people that ran it had retired and no one else had created a new one. Oh sure, there was apparently one in the process of setting itself up, but they were still waiting for their boat to be trucked over from a marina in Olivine City.

She could swim across, growing up next to the ocean, she was a pretty strong swimmer, but she probably wasn't strong enough to get across with her heavy pack. There was also the problem of her bike. She didn't want to just leave it, and it would take too long to find someone to sell it to. Also, she didn't have a car, so the bike would be her transportation to and from a job, after she got Anseri to the lake of course.

She dimly recalled a large wooden bridge, which she could have biked across, but it had burned down. All that remained was the large concrete posts that had once held it up.

Chris was in his pokeball; she hadn't even bothered letting him out that morning, not when a river and water pokemon stood between them and Mahogany Town. Libby was paddling at the edge of the river. She wasn't particularly good at it, or fast, but the fact that she could swim was reassuring. Gen floated above Libby, the two occasionally spoke to each other, though Phillipa had no idea what about.

If nothing else, she supposed she could make several trips, carting a couple things at a time. Have Chris guard her stuff on one end, Libby at the other, and Gen follow her back and forth to keep away any wild pokemon. It would get her stuff across, though most of it would be soaked through, but it still didn't solve the problem of her bike. It wasn't as though she had brought a tool set so that she could take the bike apart and she rather doubted she would be able to get it back together afterwards if she did.

Inspiration struck when she saw a trainer, just upriver from her, let out some kind of water pokemon. It was from Hoenn, though she couldn't remember what it was called; it was the non-gorebyss evolution of clamperl at any rate.

"Hey!" She called out to him

"Huh? Hey, wanna battle?" He called back, once he had looked up.

"Actually, I was wondering if you'd be willing to help me get my stuff across the river. I'll pay you."

Hopefully the prospect of free money would distract the kid from wanting to battle.

"How about, I'll take you across if you battle me, no money involved?"

Bloody trainers.

"Fine."

"Yeah!" The kid whooped, "Hold up, Pearly, got a battle first." He told his water pokemon. "How about a six-vee-six?" He offered

"Yeah, I only have three pokemon." The look of derision on the kid's face was plain to see, "That's why I offered money in the first place."

"Are you even a real trainer?" He asked

"Not really, I'm just trying to get...somewhere."

"And you didn't think to get a water pokemon to get you across stuff like this?" He asked, pointing at the river.

"Last time I was here there was a ferry service and a bridge." Phillipa shrugged

"Well, as you aren't a real trainer," Phillipa rolled her eyes at the superiority in the kid's voice, "I'll get you and your stuff across, if you take me to the Lake of Rage."

"Sure, I was going there anyway."

"Great! Lets get the bike across first, it's metal so the water won't hurt it. Pearly, take the bike over."

Pearly, the non-gorebyss, slithered out of the water to grab Phillipa's bike in its mouth. Phillipa and the kid had to help it get it into the water, but it quickly swam across once the bike was in.

"Gen, go guard everything that gets dumped at the other side."

Gen left Libby in the shallows and floated over the river after Pearly. Libby paddled over to Phillipa, before climbing up her leg to cling onto her back.

"That's gross, Libby."

"Would your mankey be able to stand on Pearly's back, and hold our packs out of the water?" The kid asked

"I think so."

Pearly had already reached the far shore and dragged the bike out of the water. Gen hovered over it while Pearly swam back.

"Well, lets give it a try, I'd rather keep my stuff dry if I can." The kid said

Phillipa explained his idea to Libby, who seemed enthusiastic to try it, and didn't even seem to mind having to ride the strange pokemon.

It took a minute to figure out a way Libby could manage to balance on Pearly, until the kid suggested hanging on to the fin on its head. Instead of using her hands, like they'd expected, Libby wrapped her tail around the fin and practically hung off the water pokemon. She didn't look very steady, but she seemed to know what she was doing. They gave her Phillipa's pack first, as it was lighter than the kid's, and so easier to balance. Plus, Phillipa kept all her electronics in ziploc bags, a precaution after she'd once dropped her phone in a rock pool.

The pair made it across, Phillipa's bag almost as dry as when it started; Pearly had splashed a little bit, but it was nothing major. Libby carried it to the grass so that it wasn't sitting in the mud, before hopping back onto Pearly and riding back. Once they were loaded up with the kid's pack, Phillipa followed them into the water to swim across herself.

"Don't you want to wait for Pearly?" The kid asked

"Nah, it's not that far and the water isn't that cold." Phillipa replied, before pushing herself forward and swimming across with a powerful front crawl.

The kid followed her, not wanting to be outdone by someone who wasn't even a trainer, but being shorter than her, he took long enough that Pearly ended up going back for him.

"You're nuts! That was freezing!" The kid gasped once he was across.

Phillipa just burst out laughing in response, until Libby, who was now muddy as well as wet, jumped on her back again.

"Serves you right." The kid huffed, "Do you know how much further it is to Mahogany?"

"I think about a half an hour walk, then the other half of the river, then we're basically there." She replied

"The other half? Does this thing loop back or something?"

"No, it splits inside Mt. Mortar, and joins back together about ten miles downriver. I think the other half is smaller, though."

"No point in drying off, then." The kid said. "Are there any trainers about here?"

"I...don't remember. I was about eight when I came here last."

"Dibs."

"They're all yours." Phillipa said with a smile, Chris might get upset at missing the fights, but only if she was dumb enough to let him know.

The sun was warm and the breeze brisk enough that they were almost dry when they reached the other half of the river. On the other side, they could see several people wandering around, as well as a battle between a couple trainers.

"Are these guys really that likely to take our stuff?" The kid asked, as Pearly and Gen went across the river with Phillipa's bike again.

"I've no idea, but I'd rather not find out."

"Fair enough."

This time, they were faster getting everything across, and Phillipa managed to wade over, though the kid still had to swim. Once they were on the other side, the kid returned Pearly, and sent out a fire...thing, that was introduced as "Iggy". It was yellow and green and rather dopey looking, but it wore a harness that the kid attached his pack to. Despite its small size, it had no problem keeping up to them, even when carrying the pack that was was almost as big as it was.

They met three trainers before they got to town, and the kid flattened all of them. It made Phillipa feel even better about managing to wrangle out of a battle. He used an electric cat, a dark dog, and a large snake, none of which she'd ever seen before. Most of them used attacks that she was sure were TMs, too.

She also learned that the kid's name was Damien.

"Well, this is...quaint." Damien said once they got to Mahogany Town.

The town was very small, especially so if you weren't expecting it. There was no pokemart, just a convenience store, and the pokemon center was barely bigger than the houses around it. There was a gym, but it was hardly eye catching; if it wasn't for the sign, it would look like any other building.

Last time Phillipa had been there, the convenience store had had a small cafe inside, and she hoped it was still there; the food was more expensive than that at the pokemon center, but it was much nicer.

"C'mon, lets go eat." Phillipa said.

The cafe was still there, and they got a couple pies from it. While they ate, they went to the pokemon center to book rooms, drop off their bags, and get Damien's pokemon healed. Phillipa locked her bike up at a rack next to the gym; it was only lunch time and, even though they were walking, they had plenty of time to get to the lake and back.

Phillipa was surprised at the amount of trainers along Route 43, but Damien happily battled all of them, and won all the fights, too. Thanks to Damien, she didn't need any of her pokemon out to fend off the wild pokemon, but she kept Gen out anyway so that it could enjoy being in the grass without having to avoid fights.

Eventually, the grass stopped and the Lake of Rage began. The lake was as majestic and glistening as she remembered, even if she didn't particularly care right then; she needed to find a way to ditch the kid so that she could let Anesri out.

"I'm off to find a gyarados. Laters." Damien said, throwing Pearly's pokeball into the lake.

With a quick wave goodbye, Damien and Pearly took off for deeper waters. Once he was a few meters out, Pearly dived underwater, pulling Damien with him.

That was certainly easier than she'd thought it would be.

Now that Damien was gone, Phillipa sent out Libby so that Gen wouldn't have to battle anything on his own, and started walking along the lake front. Eventually, she got to the resting stop where grampa had always sat during his walks.

Anseri's ball had gotten buried underneath her wallet, but she dug it out quickly enough. After a moments thought, she returned Libby, not knowing how Anseri would react to the pokemon he had never met, and shooed Gen through the wooden roof of the shelter. Without much aplomb, she tossed his ball into the lake.

The elderly golduck appeared and took a long look around him. Phillipa wasn't sure how good his eyesight was anymore, but he quickly dove under the water. She could see him swimming out towards the middle of the lake, before the depth and reflecting sunlight hid him from her view.

"Gastly?"

Gen had sunk back through the roof and was floating just above the handrail.

"Do you think he's coming back?" Phillipa asked it

"Gaaaas." Gen replied

They waited for about an hour, but he didn't come back. After letting Libby out, the trio walked back along the shore pondering. What was she going to do now?


End file.
